“So no close girlfriend who may have helped her?” Tracy pressed, wondering why Strickland was being evasive about Devin Chambers.
“Not that I can think of . . . I mean, for someone to do that . . . It’s a pretty terrible thing to do to someone.”
“Do you mean to Andrea or to you?” Kins asked.
“To me,” he said. “They would have had to really hate me to let me go through something like this. I could have spent the rest of my life in jail.”
“What about someone named Devin Chambers?” Tracy said.
“Andrea and Devin worked together,” Strickland said, seemingly unflustered.
“Were they close?”
“I don’t know. I think it was more of a work relationship.”
“Did you speak to Devin Chambers after your wife’s disappearance?”
“Why would I have done that?”
“Did you speak to her when you learned your wife had walked off the mountain?”
“No.”
“Did you speak to anyone when you received the news?”
“Just Phil.”
“Your wife had a trust, did she not?”
“Yes,” Strickland said.
“It was in excess of half a million dollars?”
“That’s correct.”
“Did you obtain that money after your wife disappeared on the mountain?”
“No, and I have no idea what happened to it.”
“It’s gone?” Tracy asked.
“Apparently.”
“And you don’t know where it is?”
“I don’t.”
“You said you and Andrea loved the outdoors?” Tracy asked.
“We did,” Strickland said, though he definitely didn’t strike Tracy as the outdoor type.
“What did you do besides climbing?”
“We hiked quite a bit. Skied in the winter.”
“Water-skied?”
“On occasion.”
“Can you drive a boat?” Kins asked.
Strickland shrugged, meeting Kins’s gaze, and in that brief moment letting Kins know he knew exactly where Kins was going, and he had already beaten him there. “Just about anyone can drive a boat,” he said.
After another thirty minutes, Tracy looked to Kins, who gave her a slight shrug. They weren’t going to get much more out of Strickland. He was slick, as Fields had warned, and he had Montgomery running interference for him. She thanked both Strickland and Montgomery and handed them a card. “If you think of anything that might be helpful, you can reach me at that number.”
As they left the building, stepping from air-conditioning into a quickly warming day, Tracy said, “You knew he didn’t own a boat.”
“I just wanted to know if he knew how to drive one,” Kins said.
CHAPTER 14
After leaving the DOL, I practiced the name, saying it out loud and in sentences like, “Hi, I’m Lynn Hoff.” I drove to Renton, which was on the way back to Portland. I’d found a bank online the previous night called Emerald Credit Union. I stopped in a gas station restroom and applied mascara, eyeliner, and lipstick. I also brushed out my hair and removed my wedding band.
Inside the bank, I approached the counter and told the woman I was hoping to open a new bank account. She directed me to four desks at the back divided by cubicle walls. Two of the desks were empty. A woman who looked to be in her midthirties sat at the third desk. At the fourth sat a guy who looked about my age, with wisps of hair above his upper lip. The nameplate said “Branch Manager.” I quickly approached.
“Hi,” I said, smiling brightly. “I’m hoping you could help me open an account.”
He looked up from his computer and smiled. His eyes ran down my body. I knew I looked as good as I ever had, with the weight loss and the workouts in preparation for climbing Mount Rainier. “I’d be happy to,” he said.
“I just recently relocated,” I said, sitting and moving close so that I could lean an arm on the edge of his desk. “So I have a temporary driver’s license.”
“That’s fine,” he said, still smiling. His gaze dropped for just a brief second to the V in my blouse before reengaging my eyes. “What brings you to Washington?”
“Work,” I said. “My company transferred me here to open an office.” I reached out and shook his hand. “Lynn Hoff.” I liked how the name just rolled off my tongue.
“Kevin Gonzalez,” he said. “I’m the branch manager. What kind of work do you do?”
“It’s an outdoor apparel company, a start-up.”
“What’s it called?” he asked. “Maybe I’ve heard of it.”
“Running Free,” I said, having thought of the name the night before.
“Great name.” He opened his desk drawers and removed paperwork. “How much will you be depositing with us today?”
“In that account?” I paused. “Just a few hundred dollars. My company will be wiring me additional funds once I provide them with the routing and account numbers, and I’ll be making frequent online deposits, probably daily.”
“We can certainly do that,” Kevin said. “I noticed you said, ‘that account.’ Will you be opening another account?”
“I want to also open a personal account,” I said. “It’s quite a bit of money, a settlement from a lawsuit. I was in an accident several years ago. Now that I’m moving here, I want to transfer the funds.”